By Oscar Benitez
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is said to be a time machine of sorts. It recently gave astronomers insight into the formation and evolution of stars and galaxies. It captured images of the brightest and largest star-forming region in the Small Magellanic Cloud.
According to Oct. 10, 2023 press release titled “NASA’s Webb Captures an Ethereal View of NGC 346”, “The results have implications for our understanding of galaxies that existed billions of years ago during an era in the universe known as cosmic noon, when star formation was at its peak and heavy-element concentrations were lower, as seen in the SMC. This recent observation of NGC 346 found streamers of gas and dust filled with young protostars. The new idea that unpolluted gas is more connected to galaxies rather than heavy elements has challenged scientists’ expectations.
Ernest Bavarsad, professor of astronomy at College of Southern Nevada, said, “Not only will we be able to refine a value that can describe how our universe is growing, but we can also study the protostars that are forming, which can be studied with the precision of the James Webb Telescope infrared instruments. The Small Magellanic Cloud is known for having a low concentration of metals — elements heavier than helium — versus other galaxies with star formation occurring. This gives us a view of earlier conditions in our universe, where stellar formation is high, and metals are low in abundance.”
According to a 2022 feature in TechCrunch on how the Webb sends its hundred-megapixel images back to Earth, Devin Coldewey wrote, “The Hubble image is about 23.5 megapixels: weighing in at 32 megabytes uncompressed. The Webb image is 123 megabytes and approximately 137 megabytes. That’s more than five times the data, but even that doesn’t tell the whole story. The Webb’s specs have it sending data back at 25 times the throughput of the Hubble: not just bigger images but more of them from 3,000 times farther away.”
CSN astronomy Professor David Goldwater said, “I am mostly interested in its ability to image and let us analyze the first, original round of galaxy formation within the universe, occurring about 13 billion years ago. Prior to this time, there were no stars and galaxies, just vast clouds of hydrogen and helium that were beginning to collapse to form the first galaxies. This very early time in the Universe — less than a billion years after the Big Bang — before the first stars and galaxies were born, is commonly referred to as the dark age by astronomers.”
Goldwater said, “Since the image gained by Webb is in the infrared, scientists have assigned different colors to represent different temperatures within the nebula.”
According to NASA’s press release, “In this representative-color image, blue tendrils trace emission from material that includes dusty silicates and sooty chemical molecules known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs. More diffuse red emission shines from warm dust heated by the brightest and most massive stars in the heart of the region. An arc at the center left may be a reflection of light from the star near the arc’s center. Lastly, bright patches and filaments mark areas with abundant numbers of protostars. The research team looked for the reddest stars, and found 1,001-pinpoint sources of light, most of them young stars still embedded in their dusty cocoons.”
Bavarsad added, “There’s so much that the James Webb Telescope has brought us for astronomy. In particular, I would love to see more data on exoplanet atmospheres. Signatures-of-life in the atmospheres of planets outside of our solar system within 50-light years of Earth can be detected by the James Webb Telescope, which is a big tool for us to have in the search for life outside of our planet.”
Dr. Andrew Kerr, CSN Planetarium manager, said, “Just like all science exploration, this can only lead to us knowing more about the universe around us. By challenging previously held beliefs, we are moving forward. When we learn more about how the universe works, and more about the objects even nearby to us, we can expand those ideas outwards to try to find new avenues of study throughout the entire universe. When we do this, we ultimately learn more about ourselves in the process.”
CSN Planetarium hopes to present a show on the images. Kerr said, “I actually created a brief 20-minute program using NASA videos for the first anniversary of the Webb’s first images this past summer. It is available for folks who would like to see it.”
Webb launched Dec. 25, 2021 and contributed more information in its first year and a half than in the past 20 years. It builds on the legacy of the Hubble Space Telescope. Its contribution to our understanding of the universe unravels many mysteries and will do so for decades to come.
Coyote Student News at the College of Southern Nevada 